0 miles on route because we decided to sort out Guy's tyre before proceeding, and to try to fix up a train and ferry so we can do a round trip on bikes to Cape Reinga from here in Auckland and then be whisked back to Wellington and the ferry before everything stops for Christmas. Well it turned out that train bookings are shut until Monday so that didn't work but we did the following useful things: got a tyre and inner tube for Guy's bike, visited the Auckland Art Gallery (reduced version owing to redevelopment), visited the Winter Gardens (lovely hot and cool houses) including the fern garden, visited a brew pub called the Shakespeare Tavern (a raspberry beer and a stout were their brews alongside several others,both good), and generally exhausted ourselves walking around the relatively ugly but interesting city (yes, it doesn't look pretty, just like a sunny Manchester really). We also discovered that the ferry out to a northern suburb doesn't run very often so we'll probably just plough through the sububs by bike. Finished with another cheap and excellent Thai meal from just up the hill from the hostel. Now drinking tea and considering our route when not reading books (Port Tarascon by Daudet in my case, Guy is reading Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian - which I just read for the third time).
0 miles on route because we decided to sort out Guy's tyre before proceeding, and to try to fix up a train and ferry so we can do a round trip on bikes to Cape Reinga from here in Auckland and then be whisked back to Wellington and the ferry before everything stops for Christmas. Well it turned out that train bookings are shut until Monday so that didn't work but we did the following useful things: got a tyre and inner tube for Guy's bike, visited the Auckland Art Gallery (reduced version owing to redevelopment), visited the Winter Gardens (lovely hot and cool houses) including the fern garden, visited a brew pub called the Shakespeare Tavern (a raspberry beer and a stout were their brews alongside several others,both good), and generally exhausted ourselves walking around the relatively ugly but interesting city (yes, it doesn't look pretty, just like a sunny Manchester really). We also discovered that the ferry out to a northern suburb doesn't run very often so we'll probably just plough through the sububs by bike. Finished with another cheap and excellent Thai meal from just up the hill from the hostel. Now drinking tea and considering our route when not reading books (Port Tarascon by Daudet in my case, Guy is reading Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian - which I just read for the third time).